Penguins send shocking message to Tristan Jarry on Saturday.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have just sent a shocking, and very clear, message to number one goaltender Tristan Jarry.

On Monday, the Penguins officially announced that Jarry was being sent down to the American Hockey League where he will join the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on what is being described by the team as a conditioning loan. The move is clearly designed to give Jarry a wake up call after a terrible start to the regular season, one in which he posted a 5.47 goals against average and a .836 save percentage over 3 appearances.

Jarry was expected to be the Penguins number one netminder this season despite losing his net to backup goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic last season, due in large part to the hefty contract he currently has. Jarry was signed to a big new deal in July of 2023, a 5 year contract that carries an average annual value and salary cap hit of $5.375 million per season, but that is now a deal that is reflecting rather poorly on Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas.

Jarry did not live up to the expectations of that deal last season, recording a 2.91 goals against average and a .903 save percentage over his 51 apperances during the 2023-24 campaign, and obviously things are off to an even rockier start this season.

The question now of course will be whether or not this dose of tough love will be enough to get Jarry back to where he needs to be to justify his contract, or if he will continue to struggle and force the Penguins to take even more drastic measures to get out from under his contract. 

There have been some suggestions that the Penguins could, or even should, consider buying out Jarry's contract sooner rather than later and his play at the AHL level could very well determine whether or not the Penguins go down that path.